This resource remains available under SCIE’s commitment to share knowledge and information but please be alert to changes in policy or practice since publication. This resource was last updated in September 2012.

Care Skillsbase

How to use the Skills Checks - frequently asked questions

1. What do Skills Checks do?Open

Skills Checks help you decide and discuss with the person if they have the communication and number skills needed to work safely and meet quality standards. Skills Checks are simple, short, paper-based activities (about 15 minutes for the activity plus 15 minutes for feedback). There are Skills Checks for the following:

spoken communication

reading

writing

number skills.

Each Skills Check is designed to be suitable for one or more job roles: senior care worker, care worker, administrator and ancillary staff. Each Skills Check relates to an area of health and social care work, including direct care, record-keeping and communicating with people who use services.We have produced a list of suggested relationships between the Skills Checks, the Common Induction Standards and the Health and Social Care Diploma Level 2 and 3 mandatory units. Our list is not definitive – use your own judgement, based on your own local circumstances, about how individual Skills Checks relate to standards.

2. How many Skills Checks should I do per person?Open

Probably just one, but it depends what you want to find out. Consider:

what you want to learn about the person

what skills you want to focus on

what you want the person to learn about their job.

Then use the Skills Checks categories to help you select the Skills Check that best matches your requirements.

If you choose a Skills Check to check the person’s communication skills, but think that using numbers is also an important part of their job – e.g. recording body temperature or fluid intake – you might also want to do a Skills Check for number skills.

All Skills Checks are suitable for overseas staff.

3. Why is there such a range of Skills Checks?Open

To help you find a suitable Skills Check for different members of staff doing different jobs, Skillsbase offers a selection of different Skills Checks. You can select a Skills Check by skill, by job role or by Common Induction Standard – or browse the list of all Skills Checks. You will probably only need to use one or two Skills Checks with each member of staff. All Skills Checks are suitable for overseas staff.

4. How do I choose the right Skills Check?Open

To find the right Skills Check for a particular member of staff, consider:

what you want to learn about the person

what skills you want to focus on

what you want the person to learn about their job.

Then use the Skills Check categories to help you select the Skills Checks that best matches your requirements. The only reason to use more than one Skills Check is if you want to check different skill areas (e.g. spoken communication and number skills).

Most Skills Checks can be done at a number of levels, allowing the member of staff to respond according to their own ability.

5. How do I know if I am using the Skills Checks properly?Open

The Skills Checks are designed to be easy for non-experts to use and there is no right or wrong way to use them. Provided you are getting what you want from the Skills Checks, you are using them properly.

If you have further questions, please get in touch using our feedback form.

6. What if I am not confident that I know the answer to a Skills Checks question?Open

For Skills Checks on spoken communication, reading and writing, it is more important to discuss what the member of staff thinks than to find the ‘right’ answer. In fact, for many of the questions, there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer.

For Skills Checks involving number skills, answer sheets are provided.

Your aim is to find out if the member of staff has the skills required for their job. Remember, it is the employer’s responsibility to decide whether a person has the knowledge and skills required by their job, including the ability to deal with information and communicate effectively.

7. What if I am not confident about my own communication and number skills?Open

You do not have to be an expert to use the Skills Checks effectively. Use them to judge whether you consider your staff have the skills their jobs require.
If you would like to brush up your own communication and number skills, see the Skills for Life & Employability section of the Skills for Care website for information about development resources and how to contact a skills training provider in your area.

8. Who is the best person to deliver a Skills Check?Open

To deliver a Skills Check effectively, the person (referred to in the Skills Checks as the ‘interviewer’) will need:

good interpersonal skills

a knowledge of the work of the member of staff doing the Skills Check in order to judge whether they have the skills required for their job.

The interviewer is likely to be a health and social care manager, trainer or supervisor. They do not need to be a skills expert.

9. Can Skills Checks help with inspection?Open

Yes. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) in Northern Ireland recognises that all care staff need good communication and number skills in order to work safely and well.

The Provider Compliance Assessment includes outcome areas relating to staff training and development. Employers can use Skills Checks and Manage Skills resources as evidence that they are addressing communication and number skills in their organisation.

Providers who feel that poor communication and number skills are a barrier for their organisation can use evidence from Skills Checks and can cite the use of Manage Skills resources to demonstrate actions to both limit the influence of this barrier and take creative steps to overcome it.

Providers should include a description of the evidence and where the evidence can be found, not the evidence itself. The CQC does not want to receive separate attachments of evidence to the completed Provider Compliance Assessment; if it needs to look at completed Skills Checks, Manage Skills resources or other models, it will do this when it visits providers.

10. How do Skills Checks relate to Health and Social Care Standards?Open

Skills Checks ask you to decide whether a member of staff demonstrates the communication and number skills required to work safely and meet quality standards. Standards define safety and quality in social care.

Although they are not mapped directly to care standards, many of the Skills Checks may be useful in relation to one or more of the standards.

We have produced a list of suggested relationships between the Skills Checks, the Common Induction Standards and the Health and Social Care Diploma Level 2 and 3 mandatory units. Our list is not definitive – use your own judgement, based on your own local circumstances, about how individual Skills Checks relate to standards.

Check your own work processes against these standards to identify the information that staff must understand and use and how they must communicate to deliver safe, high-quality services.

11. How do Skills Checks relate to the Manage Skills tool?Open

As a manager you need to decide whether a member of staff has the knowledge and skills required by their job, including the ability to use information and communicate effectively.

The Manage Skills resources help you do this by showing you how to:

identify the communication and number skills needed for different work tasks and activities

organise work to minimise communication and number skills problems

help staff to develop their communication and number skills

talk constructively to staff about skills issues

help staff to apply skills effectively

follow up a Skills Check.

12. Are Skills Checks suitable for managerial and professional roles?Open

This depends on local circumstances. Current Skills Checks are designed for staff in job roles at Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) Levels 2 and 3. Some Skills Checks are likely to be useful for checking the English language skills of professional staff from abroad. Some Skills Checks may be appropriate for staff undertaking roles with people management responsibilities. If, having considered the skills you wish to assess, you cannot find a suitable Skills Check, please use our feedback form to tell us about the role you would like a Skills Check for.

13. What level of communication and number skills do the Skills Checks test?Open

The Skills Checks do not test skill levels. They give you, the manager, an opportunity to judge whether a member of staff has the communication and number skills needed to do their job. The skills required for any job depend on the individual circumstances of the particular job, so only someone who knows the job well can decide what level of skills is required.

14. How do I address learning needs revealed by a Skills Check?Open

Refer to the resources in Manage Skills on ‘Working with individuals’ for guidance on how to address learning needs revealed by a Skills Check.